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I'm for more gun control

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and chief executive officer of WND. He is the author or co-author of 13 books that have sold more than 5 million copies, including his latest, "The Gospel in Every Book of the Old Testament." Before launching WND as the first independent online news outlet in 1997, he served as editor in chief of major market dailies including the legendary Sacramento Union.

The federal government bought firearms in the U.S. and sold them to the Mexican drug cartels – guns that ended up killing American law enforcement officers and an untold numbers of civilians in the U.S. and Mexico.

The Department of Homeland Security purchased 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition, including hollow points – a supply that, according to some sources, should be enough to last 100 years.

The Department of Homeland Security has ordered thousands of automatic weapons already banned for sale to U.S. citizens.

Nearly every federal agency – from the Environmental Protection Agency to FEMA – arms its field personnel, often with firearms unavailable to the citizenry.

For decades, the civilian side of the federal government has been purchasing military-style weaponry without any explanation to the citizenry as to why this is necessary.

Barack Obama now famously remarked during his first campaign that he wanted to build a “civilian national security force” as well-funded as the Department of Defense.

It is with all this and more in mind that I now proclaim my 100 percent support for stricter gun control laws – laws that would effectively disarm the civilian side of the U.S. government, other than legitimate police agencies such as the FBI and Secret Service.

The next time you hear an elected or appointed federal official suggesting further restrictions on firearms and ammunition purchases by citizens, understand what is happening. The federal government is attempting to monopolize armed force in America. This is directly contrary to the spirit and letter of the Constitution’s Second Amendment.

America’s founders were not attempting to protect the rights of hunters and sportsmen when they ratified the Second Amendment. Their intent was clear: Like almost everything else they wrote in the Constitution, it represented a check on the tendency of a central government to grab more and more power over time. This was the ultimate counterbalance to that historical trend – to ensure that civilians would be able to resist the imposition of tyranny with armed force.

George Mason, co-author of the Second Amendment, put it this way during Virginia’s convention to ratify the Constitution: “I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

Is that clear enough?

Samuel Adams explained: “And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; …”

Any doubts about what that means?

Patrick Henry added: “The great object is that every man be armed,” and “Everyone who is able may have a gun.”

Thomas Jefferson stated: “The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that … it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; … ”

There is simply no doubt about what the founders had in mind when they crafted the Second Amendment. They wanted a government accountable to the people, not subjects accountable to government.

But everything has been turned upside-down by today’s permanent political class and a media that have forsaken their own sacred obligation to serve as a watchdog on government.

That’s why it’s not enough to resist further attempts to disarm the citizenry in America.

It’s time for the people to disarm the government.

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